First Quarter History

Schnickelfritz chose American History this year.   I received a set of All American History Vol. 1 from another homeschooling mom in exchange for some accounting work I’d done for her small business.  Yes, it’s a “textbook” but not like a traditional one with paragraph after paragraph of names, dates, and places--plenty of width but no depth on anything.  Each chapter is devoted to a handful of historical figures or events--covering the background and impact of each.  Still, I missed getting the “you were there” feel that we’d had when we combined Project Passport with Mystery of History II  last year.  So I’m combining Homeschool in the Wood’s Time Traveler series with AAH.  There seems to be a perfect title for each quarter.  Here’s the first.

	All American History	New World Explorers
Week 1	No assignments	Lesson 1 What is an Explorer Lesson 2  Life of an Explorer Pt. 1 Lesson 3 Life of an Explorer Pt. 2 Lesson 4 Ship Ahoy Lesson 6 Navigation
Week 2	Lesson 1 The First Americans & Leif Eriksson	Lesson 7 Leif Erickson
Week 3	Lesson 2  Marco Polo & Prince Henry the Navigator	No Assignments
Week 4	Lesson 3 Christopher Columbus & Amerigo Vespucci	Lesson 7 Christopher Columbus Lesson 8 Vespucci
Week 5	Lesson 4 John Cabot, Balboa & other Conquistadors	Lesson 8 Cabot Lesson 9 Balboa Lesson 11 Pizarro Lesson 12 Cortes
Week 6	Lesson 5 Ponce de Leon, Magellan, Verrazano	Lesson 9 Ponce do Leon Lesson 11 Magellan Lesson 12 Verrazano
Week 7	Lesson 6 Cartier, de Soto, Coronado	Lesson 13 Cartier & de Soto Lesson 14 Coronado
Week 8	Lesson 7 Drake, Raleigh	Lesson 14 Drake Lesson 17 Raleigh
Week 9	Lesson 8  Hudson,  Champlain	Lesson 18 Hudson & Champlain

Rather than read each chapter of AAH straight through, we focus on 1 explorer at a time--reading his Atmosphere, Event, and Impact (these are subheadings in the chapter) and doing the appropriate page in the student workbook.  We start the week with our All American History and when we’ve finished the chapter we review the same explorers in the appropriate lessons of the Time Travelers.  This way Fritz hits each explorer twice for better retention. 

In the New World Explorers we do the mapping, timeline and Explorer profile activities.  My son has never been interested in the craft projects and I’m lucky to get him to do his regular writing assignments so I don’t push the Explorer’s Weekly newspaper project.  Since we use AAH as our spine, there are several explorers we miss from NWE.

Cabrillo, Ribaut, Bering & Onate ---  Skip
Cook --  May cover with Magellan
John Smith -  saving for next quarter on American Colonies

There are also 2 pirate lessons that I’ll be saving for the 4th quarter in we cover America’s conflict with the Barbary pirates.